Valuing America’s Workforce

Tom Sticht

International Consultant in Adult Education

Two reports of multi-year research projects, separated by a decade and a half, one using statistical analysis and the other interview and observation methods, produce similar conclusions.  Both call for a greater respect for the work that people in service and so-called “blue-collar jobs” do in America to make a living, support their families, and provide for the common good of the Nation.

Concern About Disparaging People’s Competence: Cast-off Youth (T. Sticht et al,,Praeger, 1987)

Cast-off Youth is concerned with the tendency of many to denigrate the “intelligence” and character of young adults with low aptitude scores on the literacy- and numeracy-based Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT). In

2006 a New York Times article was entitled “Don’t Dumb Down the Army” when talking about the young adults who score low on the AFQT.

Concern About Disparaging People’s Competence: The Mind at Work (M.

Rose,Viking Penguin, 2004)

The Mind at Work is concerned with the tendency of many to denigrate the “intelligence”, “aptitude”, or cognitive ability of workers such as waiters, assembly line workers, welders, and other so-called “working class” people such as those reported by Rose as: quote:“the autoworkers I heard labeled by one of the supervisors as “a bunch of dummies.” end quote (pp. xix-xx)

Cast-off Youth: Quantitative Research Approach & Goal

Cast-off Youth reports a study of the Defense Department’s Project 100,000.

It studied the records of some  340,000 undereducated men during the Vietnam War in which the Army brought in 100,000 men a year who were formerly rejected because of low AFQT aptitude scores. The military’s project was called Project 100,000. Robert S. McNamara was Secretary of Defense at the time and he told me that many referred to the Project 100,000 personnel as “McNamara’s Moron Corps”, confirming the tendency to refer to those who score lower on literacy-based, aptitude tests in a derogatory manner, much as Rose found in his qualitative research with “blue-collar” or service workers.

The goal of the Cast-off Youth research was to find out how these men performed in the military and afterwards in civilian life and how the Army trains lower aptitude men to render them competent job performers. We found that more than 85 percent of these “lower mentality” who were all expected to fail, performed their jobs and completed their service with satisfactory or outstanding evaluations.

The Mind at Work: Qualitative Research Approach & Goal

The Mind at Work research used qualitative methods including extensive and intensive interviews, observations, engaging with both those learning a trade and those expert in the work. Rose provided his analyses of the cognitive processes engaged in manual and service work using “the hand and the brain”.

In discussing the goal of the Mind at Work research, Rose states: “My purpose in writing the book, then, is to provide an alternative lens on everyday work, to aid us in seeing the commonplace with greater precision.

I believe that such a change in perception could contribute to a more accurate portrayal of the full world of work, and could help us think more effectively and humanely about education, job training and the conditions in which so many people make a living.”(p.xxxii)

Similarities Among Conclusions of Cast-off Youth and The Mind at Work

Both of these research projects studied the job performance of “unskilled”

people working in jobs thought as “low skilled” or “blue-collar” and found

that:

People whom society might consider incapable of complex thought and as “dummies” in fact learned and performed jobs using more knowledge and more complex thought processes than typically imagined.

There needs to be a greater appreciation of the so-called “manual” and “unskilled” vocational trades and their potential for human cognitive and affective development.

Society should avoid the sole use of standardized cognitive test scores to exclude people from opportunities for education, training, and work.

Policies are called for which encourage greater inclusion into the mainstream of American life of those marginalized citizens whom society thinks can be cast off.

Believe in the Power of People to Achieve When Given the Opportunity

In the conclusion to The Mind at Work, Mike Rose writes: quote:“If we think that whole categories of people—identified by class, by occupation—are not that bright, then we reinforce social separations and cripple our ability to talk across our cultural divides.” End quote (p. 216)

When I traveled to Washington, DC and reported the findings of Cast-off Youth about the positive success of the Project 100,000 young men to Robert McNamara 25 years ago in April of 1985 he told me:

Quote” Its an argument that if people are motivated properly and trained properly, they can succeed.  This kind of approach shows that there is something that can be done, and that people—individuals in our society—that our society thinks can be cast off need not be cast off!”end quote

tsticht@aznet.net